


Darling can you hear the pied piper drawing near.

by youngjusticewriter



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Dreams and Nightmares, I shouldn’t be adding another wip to my collection but I passed a test today, Multi, Percy wouldn’t like the majority of police in general, Police Officer Percy Jackson, Rating may go up, The Mist - Freeform, and this was gift to myself, let me amend that earlier tag, look Percy would be a police officer who would not like the majority of the people in his department, me and my short chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:05:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21689074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youngjusticewriter/pseuds/youngjusticewriter
Summary: Percy meant to solve the Mars case like he promised but the case forces Percy to solve more than just it; there’s a lot of dead or missing kids in New York.(Cold cases could fill a graveyard.)Or, sometimes when a lost boy has grown into a man he can still hear the pied piper’s song.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Nico di Angelo/Percy Jackson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	Darling can you hear the pied piper drawing near.

The first thing that Percy became aware of when he stepped into the room was the sounds of a cartoon playing softly. While it was not paused despite /// having called that he was coming over the volume was lowered. It was smart trick, Percy thought as he took in the sight of Cecilia on the couch who was drawing with crayons, it was lowered so when Percy was talking he would be clearly heard and if the girl couldn’t continue the question she would have an easier time not thinking about it all with the cartoons being on. 

“Hello Cecilia,” Percy greeted and he didn’t put on a smile for the girl as he spoke those words. It was at the sound of his voice that finally the witness looked up from her lap. Cecilia only looked at his eyes for a few seconds before her eyes dropped to his nose. The grip she had on her dark brown crayon was still a tight thing and her other small hand was curling into a fist. 

It was that that made the pieces fall together. 

Briefly, Percy wondered how many adults had gotten onto the girl for not look at them or someone else in the eyes despite her discomfort of doing so. 

“You don’t to look at me in the eyes,” Percy told Cecilia not because she was the only witness in the house but because he knew all too well what it was liked to be forced or be told off because you weren’t being normal and obviously normal was the only way of life wasn’t it? It’s funny not in a genuinely funny way but in an ironic way how people preached or nodded along to the preaching about individuality and standing out from the crowd and how these are good things but once you stepped out from certain things they no longer practiced what they either preached or agreed to. “And you can keep drawing if you like,” Percy added after he finished his thoughts on society. 

It was after he said that that Percy took a seat in the chair next to orange couch that the kid was sitting on. The chair was orange too but a different shade - just a bit too light when you compared it to the couch. The only noises in the room were of the blonde haired boy on the tv yelling on how he wasn’t short and the sound of crayon against paper. It couldn’t last but Percy wasn’t going to ask just yet. 

“My partner, Alex, she kept trying to get me to buy or even rent some horror audiobooks since I always watch horror movies.” It was that that made Percy momentarily raise his shoulders before dropping them even though Alex or any other adult really wasn’t in the room. “She kept talking about how it’s good to have hobby especially with our line of work. I do have one,” Percy confessed to Cecilia who eyes were the paper she was drawing a creature on. There was something about the thing on the paper even though Cecilia hadn’t even finished with it. Somehow it made Percy’s mind feel like a mosquito bite (something that he wanted to itch the it but shouldn’t or in this case couldn’t)... like he had seen it before but he couldn’t place it and that was why his mind was itching. Whether the monster was from an old Marvel movie that Percy had watch with Alex and her family, a cartoon Percy had seen in passing, or perhaps even something he had seen from before he did not know. 

“Though I don’t know if I should really count it as a hobby even though it helps me after a bad day. I color - I don’t draw, it’s just coloring from books I pick up for myself  
It...” Percy paused as he tried to think of the best way to get Cecilia to understand. After a minute Percy though he had a way to convey it best, “Have you felt overwhelmed. Like a cup overfilled because sounds or people are too much?” Percy didn’t wait for an answer because the question wasn’t something he wanted an answer to. The comparison he was in middle of making was meant to give Cecilia an idea of how it felt. “Sometimes my head feels like that even when I’m by myself because of the work I do. Your family wasn’t the first family to have something horrible like that inflicted upon them and that’s why I can feel overwhelmed. The thing is I can’t let myself drown, I can’t let myself be overfilled, because it’s my job to put the monsters who do horrible things to families into a place where they can’t hurt anyone any more. So I draw because it - picking which shade out of the multiple colored pencils I have of one color that I want to use, do I want the page to be realistic or do want to use whatever color I want...like I’ll use blue to color in food or something like that, and what others colors would look best with the colored pencil I’ve already chosen - makes me too busy to overwhelmed. It’s like I can feel those emotions but held back because I’m busy coloring and sometimes when I’m done with a page I no longer feel overwhelmed and sometimes I still do.” 

“Do you want the monster to pay?” Percy questioned after how many minutes ticked by. “Do you want the monster to not be able to hurt anyone anymore?” 

Cecilia didn’t say a word but she did reach with her non occupied hand for one of the crayons on her side and put it on the low table in front of the couch that had both notebooks for drawings and coloring books. 

The crayon was blue. 

Percy didn’t put on a smile as he grabbed one of the coloring books on the wooden table. No, the unseen smile he gave was a genuine thing despite the conversation they had to have. 

“Could you tell me about that night then?” Was what next Percy inquired about. 

The brown crayon wasn’t put done nor did Cecilia pause from using it. “Liza has- had nightmares a lot,” Cecilia’s stumbling of tenses was expected with how her sister, Mars, Elizabeth, had been alive only days ago. “That’s why she was in mom and dad’s room.” There was a heavy pause before the girl continued in a softer voice. “That’s why I didn’t think anything was odd at first,” she confessed with guilt and regret twinned in her tone. “But then dad and mom started screaming and...” 

“I know you won’t agree with me but you did the right thing.” It was becoming hard to see the black lines Percy wasn’t suppose to cross. “The monster that did that to your parents and sister would have killed you too. You couldn’t have done anything and your family wouldn’t have wanted you to die with them. They would want you to live and one day be happy like you were before.” 

“You don’t know that!” Cried out Cecilia and for the first time since Percy entered the room the girl had stopped drawing. 

“My mom did,” Percy said only to pause because he didn’t know. He didn’t remember his mom. He hadn’t known that she had died and that he had been there yet those words had spilled from his lips and somehow in his gut he knew they were true. Desperately, he tried to hold onto the thought, the feeling, despite where he was, despite why he was here, but all Percy was left with was not even a thread to pull. 

“Good moms can be a lot alike,” and Percy had to say good moms because he had witnessed mothers that weren’t good, that didn’t want the best for their children, that thought the were doing their kids but their views had been wrong and their actions were that of abuse and neglect. “Something tells me your mom was a good mom like my mom was. So, yeah, your mom wouldn’t have wanted you to come into the bedroom no matter what you heard, no matter how horrible it was to hear and do nothing, and your mom wouldn’t want you to hold it against yourself either but it’s normal for you to do that. A lot of people have guilt on surviving something other people didn’t but the thing is you have to realize that it wasn’t your fault. The person who is at fault is the person who did this to your family.” To my mother, Percy thought. 

“My partner and I are going to put that monster in a place where they can never hurt anyone anymore,” Percy promised even though he shouldn’t because how many cases became cold? 

So many they could fill a graveyard. 

“You promise?” Cecilia asked even though there wasn’t any doubt in her voice. 

“I’ll pinky promise if you’ll like.” Percy offered to the girl even though he shouldn’t. 

“Let’s do it on the Styx.”

It was those words that made Percy’s eyebrows knit together. “Styx?” Percy repeated with confusion coloring his tone. 

Cecilia blinked in confusion like she didn’t expect Percy to question it, like promising on this Styx was normal. “It’s what my sister doe- did when making a promise.” 

And it was those words that Percy made make a promise on Styx even as he questioned where he heard of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Even with amnesia Percy realized he shouldn’t be making that promise unfortunately he did end up swearing on the Styx.


End file.
